It is not known when playing cards arrived in Persia. They may have been acquired through trade in the Silk Road or brought by the Mongol conquerors in the 13th century. Persian cards, known as Ganjifeh or Ganjafa, have eight suits. Mughal conquerors brought these cards to India in the early 16th century where they are called Ganjifa. In India, current packs used for play have eight, ten, or twelve suits though as many as 32 suits once existed. The Indians also converted the original rectangular cards to circular ones. In Iran, the cards were superseded by As-Nas decks during the 19th century.
Despite the wide variety of Ganjifa patterns, the suits show a uniformity of structure. Every suit contains twelve cards with the top two usually being the court cards of king and vizier and the bottom ten being pip cards. Half the suits use reverse ranking for their pip cards.
There are many motifs for the suit pips but some include coins, clubs, jugs, and swords which resemble later Mamluk and Latin suits. Michael Dummett speculated that Ganjifa and Mamluk cards may have descended from an earlier deck which consisted of 48 cards divided into four suits each with ten pip cards and two court cards.